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The IPKat has been able to access this part of the text of the
draft report, and here are some of the most interesting proposals included
therein.

Press publishers' right to disappear and be replaced by a
presumption of representation

MEP Comodini Cachia appears willing to suggest that this proposed
new sui generis right should bedumpedsubject to a significant
re-thinking.

In particular, the draft report proposes to re-write Article 11(1)
of the proposed directive as follows:

"Member
States shall provide publishers of press publications with a presumption of
representation of authors of literary works contained therein and the legal
capacity to sue in their own name when defending the rights of such authors for
the digital use of their press publications."

The future of the proposedpress publishers' right?

Together with a re-writing of Article 11(1) comes also the
deletion of Article 11(4). This paragraph, in the Commission's original
proposal, would have made the new press publishers' right subject to a 20-year
duration.

Value gap proposal to be clarified

In relation to the so called value gap proposal in Article 13, in
her draft report MEP Comodini Cachia notes how the liability regime envisaged
therein is complementary to the one already established in theE-commerce
Directive, to the extent that Article 13 seeks to ensure the effective
implementation of agreements concluded between online service providers and
rightholders for the use of works.

In this sense, Article 13 should provide clarity as to which
online service providers it refers to, and should use the same
classification employed in the E-Commerce.

According to MEP Comodini Cachia, the implementation of agreements
between online service providers and rightholders may be carried through
technological measures, but these must be respectful of the copyright acquis in
its entirety, including relevant exceptions and limitations.

I have only seen part of the newly worded Recital 38, but MEP
Comodini Cachia proposes to clarify that the obligation of online service
providers to conlcude licensing agreements with rightholders only arises when they
are "actively and directly involved in the making available of user uploaded
content and where this activity is not of a mere technical,
automatic and passive nature".

***

Further details on the draft report will be provided as soon as
they become available: stay tuned!

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